


your stories echo from the past

by solsticeflux



Series: it's there in black and white [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/M, but first PAIN, healing!!, is the chalice a character, ouch writing this one hurt me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 19:57:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8591551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solsticeflux/pseuds/solsticeflux
Summary: Magnus stares at the stars and allows himself to think about what might have been. There isn’t a thrall to tempt him anymore, only his own thoughts. Alternatively, a time-lapse look at Magnus then, and Magnus now.





	

**Author's Note:**

> welcome back to fluxxy's angst corner, tonight's patron of honor being one Magnus Burnsides
> 
> i mean it says it's part of a series but you really don't have to read the first part to understand what's going on here?? just me doing some deep introspection on magnus 
> 
> luv that man
> 
> (sorry magnus)

The first time Magnus Burnsides returns home, he returns a hero. There’s a crowd waiting for him on the way back to the Craftsman's Corner, nearly parade size, awe-inspiring and full of people screaming his name, and the names of the others. They have won the day, with massive celebrations lining the streets of Raven’s Roost as they all ride back in. The other men stop to acknowledge the crowd, but Magnus has his eyes set on one person, and one person only. 

As he spots her in the crowd his eyes light up with pure adoration, and the fighter leaps off his horse and into the mass. Some part for him, some cling to him, Magnus notices none of it. She has her eyes trained on him, hawk-like and sparkling. The man is quick to envelope her into a tight hug as she whispers into his ear a quiet “I knew you could do it.” 

“Julia,” He breathes, the sound coming out in a devoted hush. Magnus steps away from the hug and ignores her questioning look. He drops to a knee and the crowd around them steps back, some gasping, others looking on with knowing smiles. 

“Will you marry me?” 

He’s dead serious, almost nervously holding out the ring to the woman he loves more than anything, and Julia giggles. She hoists Magnus to his feet and embraces him, her slightly wet eyes burying in his shoulder.

“I almost thought I was going to have to ask you myself.” She jokes, voice choked from an onslaught of tears of joy. The carpenter squeezes her tightly and spins her around. The crowd looks on, smiling even brighter than before. 

They are married the next week, after Magnus finishes making the gazebo. They sit in it together for hours after the ceremony, just looking at the stars. 

“What were you going to do if I said no?” Julia asks, and Magnus just gives her this _look._ A look like she’s the sun, the stars, the moon, everything that ever shined, in the sky or otherwise.  
Julia Burnsides rests her head on her husband’s shoulder and laughs quietly.

“You sure know how to make a girl feel special.” 

 

The second time Magnus Burnsides returns home, it is gone. Though Callen had been soundly defeated, nothing could stop his pride. He returns to Raven’s Roost while Magnus is away and sets it alight, destroys it, _wrecks_ it, as if to prove he’s somehow better. There are small crowds of crying citizens as Magnus rides in, and he is sick to his stomach.  
There is no Craftsman’s Corner. Not anymore. 

He tries to find it anyway, tries to find Stephen, tries to find _Julia,_ but all he finds is rubble. And he claws through that like he could find something beneath it, rips through every mess of burned wood, overturns every large pile of destroyed rock, like demons were on his tail. Maybe they are, for all Magnus knows. His sole objective is to _find his wife._ He only barely notices as one of the men who helped him defeat Callen the first time slides a hand carefully onto his shoulder.

“We couldn’t stop him, Magnus, we tried so hard…” In his haze of worry and overwhelming, unyielding dread, Magnus cannot remember this man’s name. “We couldn’t have _known,_ it wasn’t-” He trails off again and runs a hand through his hair, eyes welling with tears. The carpenter is barely paying attention, eyes darting from mass to mass of ruined materials as if he can spot his jewel without moving them at all. His friend continues speaking, but Magnus isn’t even listening until one final sentence leaves his lips. 

“They’re dead…” 

Magnus freezes and feels his blood run cold, chilling him in ways he thought only death could achieve. Taking one more gaze around as he drops to his knees in anguish, he supposes that this is close enough to death. This feeling of guilt that wraps around his throat, the knowing that Stephen and Julia had been murdered while he was away, by a man he’d helped demolish. The thought hits him so quickly; he could have saved them. The very air in his lungs is knocked out of him as he hits the ground and the force of his knees colliding with destroyed pieces of gravel is enough to wrench an ugly sob out of him that feels as if it came from not his lungs, but his soul. As if his very being is screaming out, pushing cry after cry from his body almost as fast as he gulps in air.

Magnus leaves Raven’s Roost with the clothes on his back and the supplies in his cart. He cannot stand being surrounded by the memories of a happiness he had _won,_ only for it to be taken. 

Residents of Raven’s Roost , if asked, can still recall every moment of their hero’s return, and then, departure. His cries have never left their ears, even after time has settled the events of that day into distant memories. 

 

The third time Magnus Burnsides returns home, it has been years. It isn’t even his home; it is only a memory being replayed by June. He is not in Raven’s Roost. He is in Refuge. Magnus tries to keep telling himself this, tries to stop himself from getting caught up in the memory.  
He fails and watches, enraptured. He is watching himself make a chair, a beautiful chair, and instantly knows the exact day that June has stopped on. 

It’s the last day he ever saw Julia alive. 

As if on cue, she enters into the memory-workshop. She’s just as beautiful as Magnus remembers her and even that thought alone feels as though someone has grabbed his heart in a vice. Every time his Julia speaks, it tightens until the fighter is gasping for breath. He is immobile, but he wants so very badly to hold his wife, one last time, tell her how much he loves her, he wants to stop himself from ever leaving Raven’s Roost-  
The memory plays on, uninterrupted by his internal agony. He sees a younger version of himself card a hand through Julia’s hair and kiss her forehead. He opens the door to the house, looks back, and says it: 

“I love you, Jules.” 

The memory freezes. 

“Don’t you want to stop yourself from leaving?” June, no, the Temporal Chalice, speaks, slowly, deliberately. “They don’t have to die. You could save them.” The vice around his heart hasn’t let up for a moment and he _aches_ with every fiber of his being. 

He wants it. 

He wants the Chalice so badly, so deeply. 

He could _save them._

_Save her._

 

In the end, he refuses. 

Even though the offer is the sweetest temptation he could possibly be given, just short of being able to bring his love back from the dead, he still declines. He has helped people in this timeline, people who would have died, otherwise. He thinks about Refuge, about how one man’s enthrallment with the Chalice had led to death, upon death, upon death. Dominion over time is nothing a mortal should ever have access to. Looking beside him, Taako and Merle seem to be having the same thoughts. 

However, Magnus knows that isn’t the only reason he refuses. 

Julia wouldn’t have wanted him to take it. He has to honor her memory, the only thing he has left of her, because without that, he is nothing. It is hardships, his heartbreaks, his sorrows, that make him the person he is. He has to let that be his motivator, he has to keep going when Julia cannot. She can live through him. 

When he saves a life, his memories of Julia revive in his heart. They ache, yes, but the happiness he feels is enough to push back the tides. He knows this is what she would have wanted.

Taking the Chalice would have disappointed her, and Magnus absolutely _cannot bear the thought of it._

 

The Reclaimers escape from Refuge together. 

 

Once back in their own living space, the Temporal Chalice safely destroyed, Magnus stares at the stars and allows himself to think about what might have been. There isn’t a thrall to tempt him anymore, only his own thoughts. He imagines a world where his Julia is alive and well, safe and breathing; a world where he never wields an axe against a living being; a world where they finally start up that family they talked so much about. Tears well in his eyes like ghosts and he breathes in, deeply, willing them not to cascade down his cheeks. Julia hated it when people cried around her, it always made her want to cry, too. 

There’s the sound of a door opening behind him and Magnus doesn’t move. Taako stands beside him for a moment and then bumps their shoulders together. 

“Refuge was rough, huh buddy?” The elf starts. The fighter heaves a heavy breath into his lungs again and nods, not trusting his voice in this moment. A silence drags on between them, but not an uncomfortable one. Words are unnecessary as the stars shine above them. 

“At least we’re home now.” Taako finishes out and slaps a hand onto Magnus’ shoulder in what he assumes to be comfort. The wizard turns to leave, but not before giving the other one last smile, more of a smirk, if you asked anyone else, that is purely and undeniably Taako. 

A few minutes later, Magnus re-enters their living room. He sees Taako levitating a book in front of his face as he lies sprawled over the absolute entirety of the couch. On one of the chairs he sees Merle, studying his Extreme Teen Bible and occasionally plucking a leaf from his arm. There is an open seat. 

 

Magnus Burnsides returns home.

**Author's Note:**

> oh man oh man I'm so glad to get this posted I never wanna look at it again  
> I love mag so much and I just _knew_ episode 48 was going to break me but I didn't know how badly until I listened to it and boy howdy was I a mess for at least an hour afterwards
> 
> part 2 of my quest to make myself sad by thinking about the boy's respective pasts  
> next on the list is Merle! excite
> 
> Title taken from BLACK & WHITE by GHOST again!! it's actually the next line in the song after "and in the depths of my memories"
> 
> come yell at me on tumblr my url's fluxtides


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